CH: “You cannot be an Anglican and use the Roman Missal.”

On the site of the best Catholic weekly in the UK,The Catholic Herald, there is an interesting piece about Catholic and Anglican and Anglo-Catholic and Anglicanorum coetibus Catholic identity.

The Bishop of London is right about Anglicans using the Roman rite

One cannot be an Anglican and use the Roman Missal – it is one or the other

By Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith on Monday, 21 November 2011

The Bishop of London has written a letter about the Eucharist, which makes interesting reading, and which can be read in full here. I am not an Anglican, and therefore it is not my place to comment on what Dr Chartres has to say to his flock, but there are some things that he says which reflect on us Catholics, which I feel I must comment on.

Dr Chartres writes:

In an age when Aristotle’s analysis of objects in the physical world as being composed of “essences and accidents” was widely accepted, transubstantiation was seen to have value as a picture of how the eucharistic elements were transformed. In the Windsor Agreed Statement which emerged from the first series of international discussions between Anglican and Roman Catholic theologians, transubstantiation appears only in a footnote as “affirming the fact of Christ’s presence and of the mysterious and radical change which takes place. In contemporary Roman Catholic theology it is not understood as explaining how the change takes place.” [Reminds me about how I was railed at in class during seminary for affirming transubstantiation. I was told that the old Aristotelean categories are no longer valid and that the Church no longer taught transubstantiation. I disagreed. I was thrown out. But I digress.]

While not wanting to dismiss the Windsor Agreed Statement as irrelevant, or criticizing the wording of that footnote, the truth of the matter is that the doctrine of transubstantiation is not a footnote in Catholic life, but central to Catholic belief, identity and practice. Nor does belief in transubstantiation depend on Aristotle, even if it borrows, or better steals, Aristotelian language. Long after Aristotle is forgotten, or is himself a footnote to theology, the doctrine of transubstantiation will be with us. Transubstantiation is not to be dismissed as an idea whose time has passed. It seems to me that if one were to ignore the clear doctrine of transubstantiation, one would pretty soon find oneself losing one’s belief in the true nature of the Mass as a sacrifice and the doctrine of the Real Presence.

The Bishop then goes on to talk about the “new rites” that the Catholic Church will be adopting this Advent. This is misleading. There are no new rites, there is merely a new translation of the Roman Rite. There has been no innovation, but rather a return to the original text, through greater fidelity to the Latin. [A return toward the original text.] But the Bishop says: “The new Roman rite varies considerably from its predecessor and thus from Common Worship as well.” The first part of this statement is simply factually incorrect; the second part leaves me wondering. What did the old translation have in common with Common Worship that the new translation does not? The Bishop refers to “a convergence of eucharistic doctrine and rites” between Anglicans and Catholics, but he gives no evidence for this optimistic view. Perhaps he means that Common Worship has been modeled on the old translation of the Roman Missal. But what he says about transubstantiation above indicates to me that there has been no substantial convergence, even if there may have been some accidental ones. (That Aristotelian language again!)

Then the Bishop delivers his bombshell, if it may be termed such:

Priests and parishes which do adopt the new rites – with their marked divergences from the ELLC [English Language Liturgical Consultation] texts and in the altered circumstances created by the Pope’s invitation to Anglicans to join the Ordinariate – are making a clear statement of their disassociation not only from the Church of England but from the Roman Communion as well. This is a pastoral unkindness to the laity and a serious canonical matter. The clergy involved have sworn oaths of canonical obedience as well as making their Declaration of Assent. I urge them not to create further disunity by adopting the new rites.

Of course, His Lordship is completely right about this. [NB:] The use of the Roman Missal, in whatever translation, by someone, anyone, who is not authorised by a bishop in communion with Rome, is absolutely wrong. Dr Chartres even goes so far as to mention canon law, which is, I believe, but rarely invoked in the Anglican Communion, which shows how seriously he takes this matter.

The Bishop seems to be putting clear blue water between us Catholics and his own flock, perhaps more clearly than he intends. It is clearly wrong for Anglican clergy to use the Roman Missal, from both an Anglican point of view and from our point of view. [I wonder if that includes both the Roman Missal and the Missale Romanum, in its pre-Conciliar form.] But I would add this: the Roman Missal, especially in the new translation, reflects a very clear belief in the doctrine of transubstantiation which Anglicans do not hold. Therefore they should not use the Missal. Or if they do hold to the doctrine of transubstantiation, they should come into the Ordinariate. [There it is.]

“Three priests in the Diocese have taken this step. They have followed their consciences,” remarks the Bishop speaking of the Ordinariate. Is there a third way? It would seem not. Dr Chartres, while mentioning canon law and its obligations, nevertheless makes no threats: “There will be no persecution and no creation of ritual martyrs,” he says. But the appeal to conscience and indeed logic is clear in this powerfully argued letter. You cannot be an Anglican and use the Roman Missal. It is one or the other. On that all should agree.

60 Responses to CH: “You cannot be an Anglican and use the Roman Missal.”

Someone please send this man a copy of the English Missal. As a matter of fact, Anglicans have been using the Roman Missal since Queen Victoria’s time. Does he really want to fight those old battles all over again? On the up side, this article makes me even more enthusiastic about the new translation.

The usual muddle encountered by people (including bishops) who persist in treating the Anglican/Episcopalian Church as a uniform body with some overarching rule of law. (Let me just say that this is the first time I recall any high profile instance of an Anglican or Episcopal bishop invoking canon law since the unsuccessful prosecution of Bishop Pike for heresy in the sixties.) Since there is no-one in charge, the church has long since degenerated into various small groups, mostly along the ranges of low to high, broad to dry, evangelical to self-contained, protestant to ‘catholic’ . . . or any combination of the above.
I am not sure if the Bishop of London is “low” or “high” – I am out of the loop on Anglican gossip these days – but it appears that he would just as soon see the “Anglo-Catholics” out of his hair, whether by leaving or by conforming their practice to a mean (whatever his “mean” is). He appears to be trying to dump the folks who want to be Anglican in polity while Catholic in appearance (even unto using the Missal!)
I actually agree with him that the ultra-high wing of the Anglicans needs to fish or cut bait. If they are in fact Catholic they need to join the Ordinariate. Otherwise, they need to obey their bishop. Or start their own denomination, which I guess is an option (it has certainly happened in the U.S., over and over again).
We have a wing of the Episcopalians here in the U.S. (sadly exemplified by “Smoky Mary’s” in NYC and our former ECUSA parish here) that loves the ritual, the incense, the vestments, the devotions, etc. but are otherwise wide-open heterodox believers in female and homosexual clergy, same-sex ‘marriage’, and every trendy political cause around. What used to be called “sacramental socialists”. Those folks would have absolutely no desire to join the Ordinariate, they like it just fine where they are.

I am surprised that Dr. Chartres is being so obvious. One thing is rather clear here, he’s essentially acknowledging that the Catholic Church has the upper hand! Secretly, The Anglican Communion look to, and admire the Catholic Church, I know this first-hand. They consider it a great prize when a Catholic priest apostosizes. It seems now he is rather fearful of an influx of Catholic Theology into his Christopher Wren architecture.

What I wonder is, in a world becoming entirely secular, losing its Christian foundation on morales, ethics, principles, etc…. those left actually BOTHERING to go to Church will now doubt want to go and actually BELIEVE IN SOMETHING! Is there anything more counter-cultural that the deposit of faith which remains in tact in the Catholic and Orthodox Churches? Is there anything that clearly draws the line between secular and Christian values than the traditional Christian doctrine (Catholicism and Orthodoxy)?

Anglican Churches will likely be the buildings which serve as museums to the memory of the once-Great British Empire, and that’s about it.

This is a repeat of what I wrote above. I cleaned it up because I didn’t preview…mea maxima culpa!
I am surprised that Dr. Chartres is being so obvious. One thing is rather clear here, he’s essentially acknowledging that the Catholic Church has the upper hand! Secretly, The Anglican Communion looks to, and admires the Catholic Church, I know this first-hand. They consider it a great prize when a Catholic priest apostosizes. It seems now he is rather fearful of an influx of Catholic Theology into his Christopher Wren architecture.

What I wonder is, in a world becoming entirely secular, and which is losing its Christian foundation on morales, ethics, principles, etc…. that those left actually BOTHERING to go to Church will no-doubt want to go and actually BELIEVE IN SOMETHING! Is there anything more counter-cultural that the deposit of faith which remains in tact in the Catholic and Orthodox Churches? Is there anything that clearly draws the line between secular and Christian values than the traditional Christian doctrine (Catholicism and Orthodoxy)?

Anglican Churches will likely be the buildings which serve as museums to the memory of the once-Great British Empire, and that’s about it.

Dr. Chartres should consult Catherine Pickstock, and her book “After Writing on the liturgical consummation of philosophy” on this question. She maintains that Transubstantiation is the center of everything. Of course, this is not what it says in the 39 Articles. But she and the group associated with “Radical Orthodoxy” maintains this and does so as Anglicans associated with the University of Cambridge.

If a non Catholic wants to use a Catholic liturgical book, it certainly would be used invalidly and illicitly from the perspective of the Catholic Church, but do we really care if non-Catholics do this and tell them they can’t? Perhaps it might lay the groundwork over time for them to grow closer to the visible Catholic Church and come into full communion, as those in the Ordinariate have done.

“Reminds me about how I was railed at in class during seminary for affirming transubstantiation. I was told that the old Aristotelean categories are no longer valid and that the Church no longer taught transubstantiation. I disagreed. I was thrown out. But I digress.”

I am sorry seminary was such an aweful place Father. Seminary shoudn’t be a struggle to hold onto your faith. Sadly, I do not believe yours to be an isolated experience.

Thanks for sticking it out and following God’s call to become a Holy Priest. We need you and other good men like you. We lay folks really appreciate our good priests.

In The Times this morning an ‘Anglo Catholic’ clergyman is reported as stating that many ‘Evangelical’ parishes in the Bishop’s diocese use no liturgy at all and so the Bishop is in no position to criticise anyone using a liturgy of which he disapproves! If the bishop is to be consistent he ought to say what he thinks about the ‘Evangelicals’ disobedience to canon law.

Is this an example of one of their own kicking Anglicans into the Tiber? (The water’s warm…) How many Anglicans will find themselves nearer Rome than Canterbury (well, London) after reading that document? I’m not sure that an Anglican priest of the Diocese of London who intends – or had intended – to use the new translation could now justify remaining in the Anglican Communion if he also believes in transubstantiation. Even his bishop thinks that the Ordinariate is a valid option for Anglican clergy.

Mutatis mutandis, perhaps some non-London Anglicans will find themselves being washed into the Tiber.

What a big mess we would have if a Catholic bishop in England told Catholics who don’t believe in transubstantiation to go become Anglicans. (A truly bad idea, that.)

if one were to ignore the clear doctrine of transubstantiation, one would pretty soon find oneself losing one’s belief in the true nature of the Mass as a sacrifice and the doctrine of the Real Presence

Dr. Chartres is right in that if you actually want to be a Cranmerian 39 Articles Anglican, you cannot use the liturgical books of the Church of Rome. Even though the new books do not highlight the distinctive Catholic doctrines that Anglicans rejected some 500 years ago as does the old Roman Rite and English regional usages, the fact that it is the Roman book makes it simply incompatible with the Protestant Anglican church.

Then again, I don’t think anyone in the Anglican Communion from the Queen and Archbishop of Canterbury on down has any business telling anyone who is and who isn’t an Anglican. They have run that ship on an anything goes platform for so long that one can hardly come down hard on any one group in that mess because there are numerous other groups who do the same sort of thing on all sides of the spectrum. It doesn’t make any sense, but since when did the CofE make sense?

This statement is a direct result of the many thousands of people coming into the Ordinariate. This comment is a knee-jerk reaction for the scare that the Anglican Church is having over the best and brightest leaving. Of course, some Anglican ministers have been using the Roman Missal for years.

The commentary on the thread about Anglicans and unity and the Ordinariate is very good. I have a comment in a different vein, though.

It is somewhat refreshing that the new English translation of the OF is clear enough in its expression of Catholic teaching that it led a (ambigously?) Protestant religious leader to openly disagree with it and to tell his flock that the text (and its underlying Latin) is unacceptably papist. God willing, it might even lead a number of the current generation of English-speaking Catholics to evaluate and pray concerning what they believe about Transubstantiation and the Real Presence.

It is well known that some AngloCatholic parishes in England use the modern Roman Rite, celebrated ad orientem with much solemnity, while others use the English Missal or other variants of the EF rite. Some of these parishes have joined the ordinariate, but some have not. It would hardly be surprising if those using the modern Roman Rite would want to use the improved translation.

The previous translation was so like the Prayer Bo0k “Rite Two” that theologically naive observers would feel comfortable moving between the two. This was done deliberately and with great hopes after VII and it is understandable why some mourn its passive for that reason.

AngloCatholics believe in Transubstantiation the same way real Catholics do. They long ago gave up adherence to the 39 Articles, or if they gave them any weight, it was in the Tract 90 sense of them. It was an Anglo-Catholic, godfather at my Episcopal baptism at age 20, who taught me the doctrine.

AngloCatholics have all kinds of reasons for not wanting to join the ordinariate. Until recently, they have been pretty much left alone to go their own way in the Cof E. They are suspicious, with some reason, of the English hierarchy. In many cases they are worshipping in ancient Catholic churches, beautiful and redolent with history. Some have a problem with universal jurisdiction, others with infallibility, or with one of the more recently declared Marian doctrines. Many Anglican priests balk at having to believe that their current priesthood is not valid. Probably many have marriage issues, or can’t imagine doing without contraception, and can’t understand why they should. Some cannot handle leaving the security of their positions and pensions. (And then there are the “Affirming” “Catholics”, about whom, the less said the better.)

I suspect these folks will use whatever liturgy they want to use, as they have long done, and that despite these words, absolutely nothing will happen to them.

Most of the priest with whom I am in contact with through the Ordinariate know that there are many others who want to come in. Most of the problems are not doctrinal, but physical and material. How many priests have given up pensions and houses and status in order to join the Ordianariate? There are great sacrifices. The doctrinal differences for real Anglo-Catholics are not based on what we would call the serious issues. All I have met have no trouble with the Assumption, or the Immaculate Conception.

Again, I believe that this bishop either is panicking or despairing or pushing the AngloCatholics out of the nest.

Just yesterday, literally….I had lunch with an Anglican priest who is coming into the Ordinariate, it is a matter of time, not a very long time either.

At any rate, I pulled out my 1962 Missal, he pulled out his American Missal (beautiful artwork, btw). With the exception of about three prayers (this includes the omission of the saints) and the ability to omit the Prayers at the Foot, the American Missal is the TLM in English. The language of the translation from the Angelus Press and the words of the American Missal are virtually identical. The American Missal has a few things which are a bit more Elizabethan.

Once the Ordinariate is settled in the USA, I will have no issue assisting at Holy Mass at the local parish.

On a bit more somber note, the Book of Divine Worship is very similar to the Novus Ordo. It really is…but with flowery language. This is a second option. One that is not promoted outwardly by the pastor here, because he has the American Missal (an alternate name for this is the Missal Mass).

God Bless the courage of this parish and please pray for Father and his family, as they make the move to Catholicism….it isn’t a very big step, just one that has to be made. They have a more Catholic attitude than many “cradle” Catholics do today.

Richard Chartres has long had a reputation within the Church of England as being opposed to Romanizing influences and upholding (or rather, thinking he upholds) a sort of traditional, plum pudding, Prayer Book Anglicanism.

As eulogos notes, there are many Anglicans who either believe in transubstantiation or a rather more ill defined ‘real presence’. I’m not sure why that on its own should make them become (Roman) Catholics (although seeing their view as a minority opinion within their own church should make them think rather more than it does) and I don’t read Chartres as suggesting this. (Fr Lucie-Smith is mistaken to claim that belief in transubstantiation and Anglicanism are obviously at odds.) His point seems simply about borrowing rites from another Church rather than using ‘your own’ as authorized by your own bishops. From the point of view of Anglo-Catholics, this misses out the importance of the Papacy in Christianity: not to believe that the modern Roman Catholic Church is quite right about the office of the Papacy doesn’t mean that the office still isn’t important.

In essence, you’ve got the usual anti-Roman stuff from Chartres here which in principle any Anglo-Catholic will easily reject as missing the point. But at a deeper level, it is right about the twistings and turnings that anyone claiming to be a Catholic in Anglicanism has to go through. At a certain point, you need to step back and just ask yourself why you’re part of a group which is obviously largely heretical rather than part of the Church of St Peter. And I think that the members of the Ordinariate have given the only answer that, in the end, makes sense.

My earlier post seems to have been eaten by the Moderation Monster — probably because I overused the bold feature and it thought it was links —
I had not known the “altitude” so to speak of Chartres, but speculated that whether he was high, low, or broad, he seemed to be trying to get rid of the “Anglo-Catholics”, whether by leaving or moderating their practices. As a XXXIX man, that makes sense (my old ECUSA parish studiously ignored the XXXIX for years, I used to read them occasionally and wonder what was going on.)
Thanks for filling us in, and I agree absolutely that the ultramontane Anglicans have now been given an opportunity to do what they say and say what they do.
This will remove the “cover” for those who love the external trappings of Catholic worship but don’t subscribe to the doctrine. There are certainly plenty of that sort here in the States, and the Church does not want them, even if she thinks she does.

Dr. Chartres mentions that in the Windsor Agreed Statement “transubstantiation appears only as a footnote.”. That’s true as to the word but not the content. Subsequently ARCIC published an “Elucidation”:

CHRIST’S PRESENCE IN THE EUCHARIST

Criticism has been evoked by the statement that the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ in the eucharist (para. 10). The word become has been suspected of expressing a materialistic conception of Christ’s presence, and this has seemed to some to be confirmed in the footnote on the word transubstantiation which also speaks of change. It is feared that this suggests that Christ’s presence in the eucharist is confined to the elements, and that the Real Presence involves a physical change in them.

In order to respond to these comments the Commission recalls that the Statement affirmed that:

It is the glorified Lord himself whom the community of the faithful encounters in the eucharistic celebration through the preaching of the word, in the fellowship of the Lord’s supper, in the heart of the believer, and, in a sacramental way, through the gifts of his body and blood, already given on the cross for their salvation.

His body and blood are given through the action of the Holy Spirit, appropriating bread and wine so that they become the food of the new creation already inaugurated by the coming of Christ (cf. paras. 7, 10, 11).

Becoming does not here imply material change. Nor does the liturgical use of the word imply that the bread and wine become Christ’s body and blood in such a way that in the eucharistic celebration his presence is limited to the consecrated elements. It does not imply that Christ becomes present in the eucharist in the same manner that he was present in his earthly life. it does not imply that this becoming follows the physical laws of this world. What is here affirmed is a sacramental presence in which God uses realities of this world to convey the realities of the new creation: bread for this life becomes the bread of eternal life. Before the eucharistic prayer, to the question: ‘What is that?’, the believer answers: ‘It is bread.’ After the eucharistic prayer, to the same question he answers: ‘It is truly the body of Christ, the Bread of Life.’

In the sacramental order the realities of faith become present in visible and tangible signs, enabling Christians to avail themselves of the fruits of the once-for-all redemption. in the eucharist the human person encounters in faith the person of Christ in his sacramental body and blood. This is the sense in which the community, the body of Christ, by partaking of the sacramental body of the risen Lord, grows into the unity God intends for his Church. The ultimate change intended by God is the transformation of human beings into the likeness of Christ. The bread and wine become the sacramental body and blood of Christ in order that the Christian community may become more truly what it already is, the body of Christ.

GIFT AND RECEPTION

This transformation into the likeness of Christ requires that the eucharistic gifts be received in faith. In the mystery of the eucharist we discern not one but two complementary movements within an indissoluble unity: Christ giving his body and blood, and the communicants feeding upon them in their hearts by faith. Some traditions have placed a special emphasis on the association of Christ’s presence with the consecrated elements; others have emphasized Christ’s presence n the heart of the believer through reception by faith. In the past, acute difficulties have arisen when one or other of these emphases has become most exclusive. In the opinion of the Commission neither emphasis is incompatible with eucharistic faith, provided that the complementary movement emphasized by the other position is not denied. Eucharistic doctrine must hold together these two movements since in the eucharist, the sacrament of the New Covenant, Christ gives himself to his people so that they may receive him through faith.

I suspect that this is just more fallout from our new edition of the Roman Missal. Episcopalians who have been using the 1970 version probably didn’t run into this kind of resistance, but we have a more “Roman Catholic” missal now and it may be setting off a little case of jitters among the powers that be in the Episcopalian church.

In 1991, the Vatican asked for some clarifications, which ARCIC submitted. In 1994, Cardinal Cassidy responded that the clarifications had greatly strengthened the agreement on the Eucharist.

This is from the Clarification document:

The Holy See’s Response gladly recognises our agreement with regard to the real presence of Christ: “Before the eucharistic prayer, to the question ‘What is that?’, the believer answers: ‘It is bread’. After the eucharistic prayer to the same question he answers: ‘It is truly the body of Christ, the Bread of Life”. it also acknowledges that, “The affirmations that the Eucharist is ‘the Lord’s real gift of himself to his Church’ (Eucharistic Doctrine, 8), and that bread and wine ‘become’ the body and blood of Christ (Eucharistic Doctrine, Elucidation, 6) can certainly be interpreted in conformity with catholic faith”. It only asks for some clarification to remove any ambiguity regarding the mode of the real presence. The Response speaks of the earthly realities of bread and wine being changed into “the reality of his Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity”. In its preparatory work the Commission examined with care the definition of the Council of Trent (DS 1642, 1652), repeated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992) (n. 1376). Though the Council of Trent states that the Soul and Divinity of Christ are present with his body and blood in the eucharist, it does not speak of the conversion of the earthly realities of bread and wine into the Soul and Divinity of Christ (DS 1651). The presence of the Soul is by natural concomitantia and the Divinity by virtue of the hypostatic union. The Response speaks of a ‘substantial’ presence of Christ, maintaining that this is the result of a substantial change in the elements. By its footnote on transubstantiation the Commission made clear that it was in no way dismissing the belief that “God, acting in the eucharist, effects a change in the inner reality of the elements”… and that a mysterious and radical change takes place. Paul VI in Mysterium Fidei (AAS 57, 1965) did not deny, the legitimacy of fresh ways of expressing this change even by using new words, provided that they kept and reflected what transubstantiation was intended to express. This has been our method of approach. In several places the Final Report indicates its belief in the presence of the living Christ truly and really in the elements. Even if the word “transubstantiation” only occurs in a footnote, the Final Report wished to express what the Council of Trent, as evident from its discussions, clearly intended by the use of the term.

jhayes: Does not the 640-word “Elucidation” you quote–even in light of its 401-word “Clarification”–amount to a gaseous circumlocution forced by an intent to avoid what the single word “transubstantiation” would have made lucid? Though perhaps we can read clearly the meaning of their labored avoidance of the single word that would have sufficed to say it all–without requiring clarification beyond what has been understood since Trent.

“Even if the word “transubstantiation” only occurs in a footnote, the Final Report wished to express what the Council of Trent, as evident from its discussions, clearly intended by the use of the term.”

At least an Anglican bishop got it right, the so-called “New Roman Missal” English translation is not approved by the Holy See! I told you so! At least many Anglicans have Catholic beliefs; they’re called Anglo-Catholics. Some Anglicans still don’t have Catholic beliefs, and they’re Protestant. The Anglican Missal is only the Tridentine Missal in English, and is the rite of the Church that should be used.

If they had wanted to say it plainly, surely they could and would have done so, without resorting to a “clarification” of an “elucidation” of a footnote to an agreed statement. In my experience, when people labor so mightily to avoid plain statement of an article of faith, they usually do so because they do not share that faith.

Some Anglicans use the Roman Missal?? The mind boggles. I could not figure out why in the world they would use another church’s liturgy — a church they claim to not believe in — until the commenter above mentioned the ecumenical movement. If they at one point anticipated the Church and the Anglicans uniting, that would make sense. Barely. I still do not know how you could believe in transubstantiation but belong to a communion in which priests do not have to believe in it, and frequently don’t. So that if you were an Anglican who did believe in it, you could go to a different Anglican church and receive communion from a priest who didn’t believe in it. How is this possible, logically? Sometimes the whole “the priest has to have the right intention” stuff can seem like nit-picking, until you see stuff like that. If the minister does NOT intend for transubstantiation to take place, if he thinks communion is just as symbol, you would have to believe that transubstantiation takes place as a gift from God just for you as long as you, the communicant, wants it to… but it doesn’t take place if you don’t. (Hmm, come to think of it, don’t Lutherans believe something like that?) That is too much for my poor head.

There is something worrying when Anglican glitterati like Chartres start rattling chains. Usually they get worked up about world Peace or Bankers or carbon footprints, rarely if ever, religion. Well, well, so now we know how important and significant the new translations are: not only our modernists are disturbed but also their protestant bedfellows.

The Church of England has ceased long ago to have and voice of authority or significance or much influence in this country. It has steadily got worse and worse. The Windsor agreement was as great a travesty and disgrace as the papering over the cracks by Card Cassidy with Lutherans some years ago. Utterly meaningless.

To all those good, sincere Anglicans at their wits end with this bankrupt Church, let us pray with Leo XIII for them to come home: “… joyfully submitting to the divine call and obey it, and furnish a glorious example to others. Assuredly, with an exceeding great joy, their Mother, the Church, will welcome them, and will cherish with all her love and care those whom the strength of their generous souls has, amidst many trials and difficulties, led back to her bosom.”

The purpose of ARCIC and the other ecumenical consultations (Catholic-Lutheran, etc) was to determine if, despite different terminology, we shared certain basic beliefs.

The use of the word “transubstantiation” was an obvious problem for the Anglican side of the group, since Article 28 of the 39 articles says (in part):

“Transubstantiation (or the change of the substance of bread and wine) in the Supper of the Lord, cannot be proved by Holy Writ, but is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture, overthroweth the nature of a Sacrament, and hath given occasion to many superstitions.

The body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in the Supper, only after an heavenly and spiritual manner. And the mean whereby the body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is faith”

Indeed, I’ve read somewhere the claim that most Anglo-Catholic parishes in England use the Novus Ordo Roman Missal. Whereas Anglo-Catholics in the rest of the world are more likely to use the Tridentine Missal in English translation. And that certain other Protestants use the Novus Ordo at least in the form of Eucharistic Prayer II, which allegedly was composed for ecumenical purposes, guaranteed not to offend anyone, whatever their belief (or lack thereof).

jhayes: “The purpose of ARCIC and the other ecumenical consultations (Catholic-Lutheran, etc) was to determine if, despite different terminology, we shared certain basic beliefs.”

I recall an Anglican participant in one of these consultations quoted as saying that their purpose was to contrive clever statements ambiguous enough to be interpreted one way by the Anglicans and a different way by the Catholics (to each his own, the Vatican II way?). Perhaps this Agreed Statement accomplished its desired result, whatever the ensuing elucidations and clarifications.

I’m no expert but have been to several Episcopal worship services that sounded just like a RC novus ordo. This explains why. Many a Catholic goes to them unawares and think it’s the same thing as a Catholic mass…and they receive communion, too, often.

So, will the Church of England/Anglican Communion now invest in producing its own missal?
And do they owe the RC Church some royalties for use of our missal lo these many years?

Gail F said, “I still do not know how you could believe in transubstantiation but belong to a communion in which priests do not have to believe in it, and frequently don’t. So that if you were an Anglican who did believe in it, you could go to a different Anglican church and receive communion from a priest who didn’t believe in it. How is this possible, logically?” As an about to be ex-Anglican with the forthcoming US Ordinariate, I can say that the whole “Anglican Compromise” was something of a theological don’t ask-don’t tell. The problem was that in the 16th and 17th centuries, people were at each other’s throats over this sort of stuff, and the English solution was to keep the lid on with the sorts of deliberate ambiguities people have noted here. There was some merit to this — the US Episcopal Church didn’t divide into southern and northern factions over slavery the way most other main line US churches did, for instance. The Episcopal general conventions during the Civil War simply found a way to conveniently ignore the absence of delegates from the Confederacy. I think, though, that the tensions in Anglicanism have finally grown to the point that the compromise can no longer be maintained — you marry same-sex couples or you don’t; you ordain same-sex-cohabiting bishops or you don’t, and people aren’t just looking the other way any more.

Gail F, No, you don’t quite have it right yet. AngloCatholics purport to believe that they are “the Catholic Church in England” and the true inheritors of those who worshipped in their churches before the Reformation. True Anglo-Catholics do not like the Protestant cast of the Prayer Book. They believe their priests have valid orders, and that they offer the same Eucharistic Sacrifice as Roman Catholics do. When Anglican orders were declared invalid, many of them went to great length to acquire Catholic orders, from Old Catholic bishops, and most Anglican priests do have these post reformation Catholic orders in their “pedigree”. You would have to ask them, though, what they think happens when priests with the same orders celbrate a prayer book liturgy with its more ambivalent references to sacrifice. (It does refer to it “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us, therefore, let us keep the feast” is the invitation to communion in the current prayer book.)

This was not related to the current ecumenical movement. It some ways it is very un-ecumenical, in that it clearly excludes Protestants. Anglo-Catholics teach a “three branch” theory of the Church, that the Church has three living branches, Roman Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and Anglicanism. As far as they are concerned, Methodists, Lutherans, and Baptists are nowheresville. As for Protestant Anglicans, they are simply WRONG, about what the C of E is, and is supposed to be. An Anglo-Catholic travelling would not attend a low church parish. They would know where “their” churches were in any particular locale.

It could be very beautiful, but in my opinion, it never made much sense. Or it made sense only within an English cultural context which included issues of national identity, culture, and class, which are quite difficult for us to grasp. These issues may still linger below the endge of conscious articulation and have some effect in the story of the English Ordinariate.

You’ll hear familiar language in many different churches. We all share certain traditional texts and there are agreed English translations of these which many churches use either verbatim or with minor modifications.

BobP,
Actually, in my old ECUSA parish we did occasionally have a priest chant a good portion of the Mass in Latin. And the choir was using Latin more often than not – many of the Catholic motets by the great English Catholic composers made the hike down the block to the Piskies when they were abandoned by the Catholics here for guitars, Haugen/Haas, the St. Louie Jebbies and the rest of that rabble. This was a serious stumbling block to our conversion – thank goodness we found a parish with a respectful and orthodox liturgy (and quite good music which has continued to improve).
The horrible “Rite II” in the BCP is so extremely similar to the “lame duck” translation of the Mass that I am morally convinced there was an agreement or conspiracy of some kind. It may well be that the deliberate ambiguity long employed by Anglicans (as John B says) was introduced in the ‘lame duck’ translation in some muddle-headed attempt at ecumenical ‘outreach’.
Of course the Anglicans couldn’t help themselves and scuttled that ship. Just as well.

1. — that Anglo-Catholicism outside unity with Rome is the victim of a homocide, or at least it has been assaulted with a deadly weapon with intent to kill?

2. — that the Oxford Movement now belongs to history?

3. — that those Anglicans who consider themselves Catholics now are anathemized officially by the Anglican Hierarchy?

4. — that the total number of Anglo-Papalists (qv this) now can fit into a telephone booth?

5. — that, in terms of dogmatic and moral theology, the Broad Church is triumphant in Anglicanism (or at least a Broad Church not broad enough to include Anglo-Catholics) and High Church now means little more than a kind of liturgy — and thus Anglicanism is really a kind of Western Shinto?

6. — that those Anglo-Catholics who remain in the Anglican Church and who now don’t join the Ordinarite(s) have bought themselves a first class ticket on the Hindenburg?

7. — that as of 0800hrs GMT 21 Nov 2011 John Keble, Edward Pusey, Arthur Tooth, Charles Lowder, Charles Williams, Evelyn Underhill, George Dix (The Shape of the Liturgy), C. S. Lewis, T. S. Eliot, and Dorothy Sayers all would have bought themselves tickets in any class on the fastest Eurorail train to Rome, and at this very moment would be pulling into Stazione Termini?

AAM, that’s good to know but supposedly the Latin (just as the Latin Vulgate) is in the public domain, so any one can use it, as long as he pays the publisher of the book he’s using. The translations, however, may not be in the public domain. The whole issue seems to border on the copyrights of the various translations.

At a recent TLM, I noticed a couple of young men chanting the Mass in Latin so conspicuously well that I was going to ask them afterwards if they’d like to join our schola, until I overheard them telling someone they were Episcopal seminarians, just visiting.

I can say that the whole “Anglican Compromise” was something of a theological don’t ask-don’t tell. The problem was that in the 16th and 17th centuries, people were at each other’s throats over this sort of stuff, and the English solution was to keep the lid on with the sorts of deliberate ambiguities people have noted here.

According to Adam Nicolson in his book God’s Secretaries, about the making of the Authorized (King James) Version of the Bible, the KJV was specifically designed to be just this sort of compromise, treading the line between the more “royal” language of the Bishops’ Bible (favored by high-church Anglicans) and the more “congregational” language of the Geneva Bible (favored by the Puritans). The idea was to create a Bible that everyone would feel comfortable using, or would at least accept.

Jack,
The Broad Church (insofar as it is compatible with actual anarchy and Unitarian-Universalist theology) has triumphed. The Evangelical/Low-churchers are being forced out on one end, and the (real, not superficial) Anglo-Catholics on the other, because their theology is not negotiable and cannot coexist with the current state of the Broad (“semi-Broad”? “Latitudinarian” may be best because of its rejection of any consistent theology or morals) Church.
Given what the Anglican Church has become, I’m quite certain that Keble and Pusey would be on board that train, Williams, Eliot and Sayers most probably. C.S. Lewis as well, if he could overcome his Belfast Church-of-Ireland upbringing. If you’ve read his Pilgrim’s Regress you know what a dark shadow that cast.

eulogos said:This was not related to the current ecumenical movement. It some ways it is very un-ecumenical, in that it clearly excludes Protestants. Anglo-Catholics teach a “three branch” theory of the Church, that the Church has three living branches, Roman Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and Anglicanism. As far as they are concerned, Methodists, Lutherans, and Baptists are nowheresville. As for Protestant Anglicans, they are simply WRONG, about what the C of E is, and is supposed to be. An Anglo-Catholic travelling would not attend a low church parish. They would know where “their” churches were in any particular locale.

It could be very beautiful, but in my opinion, it never made much sense. Or it made sense only within an English cultural context which included issues of national identity, culture, and class, which are quite difficult for us to grasp. These issues may still linger below the endge of conscious articulation and have some effect in the story of the English Ordinariate.

If what “could be very beautiful” in your opinion is the three-branch theory, then it CAN make sense, from a certain point-of-view.

As everyone – then and now – admits, the Western Church in the early 16th century was in MAJOR need of reform. The Holy Roman Emperor had been pressuring the Pope to call a council to effect reform for at least a century – he eventually got so fed up with being put off that he had the Pope arrested and held in prison. The French bishops got so fed up that they, in mass, rejected Papal authority for a couple of decades.

In this environment, different parts of the Church underwent several attempts at “reform.” Some were less reform and more out-right rebellion – that would be Luther and Calvin. The English Reformation under Henry VIII had its share of this, but was also a LOT more actual reform. Outside of Henry’s Act of Supremacy – which wasn’t fundamentally different than the actions of the French Church the previous decade, even if Rome’s response was massively different – and some radicals who got even more radical while exiled to Switzerland by Mary, the main movement in England from the 1530s through, say, 1570, was one of legitimate reform. A reform that preceeded Trent and which covered much of the same ground in much of the same way.

One could, if one were being truly ecumenically inclined (the way Fr. Z defines true ecumenicalism), accept that one Church, badly in need of reform, could have reformed itself in many equally-valid ways; and that most (if not all – excepting rebellion from Papal authority) of the English Reformation as it existed very early on, was valid. Thus, what was one rite – the Roman rite – of the Church effectively split into two through two different approaches to reform. Much like how the Greek and Latin rites were once one rite until the Western church translated everything into Latin and moved off in a slightly different direction leading to the liturgical and ecclesiastical distinctions we have today.

Thus, one could accept the English Church – as long as it was consistent with what it once was (with some potential caveats, including, but not limited to, Papal supremacy) – as a legitimately separate rite from the Roman rite.

If Rome was to take this stance and, instead of moving converting Anglicans into a personal ordinate, move them into a Uniate, sister-church modeled on the Byazantine Catholic Church (or the Armenian, or the Alexandrian, etc); then that would, I believe, reflect in a much more real (and humble) way the realities of history and would come across to skeptical Anglo-Catholics (like myself) as a lot more respectful of the good things from our history. Such a stance would, I believe, be a lot more broadly effective as well as more long-term stable.

Note: I’m not in any way advocating any compromise on doctrine or Papal authority or any such thing – but instead letting us have our own hierarchy and our own liturgies and not be shoved in as just another part of the Roman rite with any deviations from the norm being given as privilege. Let us use our own liturgies without editing to make them more Roman. Let our bishops stay bishops. Let us keep our churches and communities as they are. Let us keep our identities. Do that, and you’ll find a lot more of us willing to join you.

Henry Edwards,
Did you happen to catch which seminary they were attending? GTS and Seabury-Western are ‘high’ in ritual but theologically liberal/heterodox, a la “Smoky Mary’s” that I mentioned above. Nashotah House is ‘high’ Anglo-Catholic, Sewanee somewhat less so but still an orthodox seminary.
If they’re from one of the orthodox seminaries, they may be back. Back when I was still paying attention to the scuttlebutt here, Rumor Painted Full of Tongues had it that the national church was withholding ordination from graduates of those schools (that’s one way to make sure that your political allies get ordained while your potential opponents don’t. Great way for supposed men of the cloth to behave – not.)
It is pleasing in a sort of mixed way that I’m called on from time to time to translate the Latin of the anthems that we sing. I’m glad to do it and happy that I can, but fully conscious of my great deficiencies as a Latin scholar and highly embarrassed that Catholic education has fallen so low that a mere convert from the Episcopalians who didn’t major in Classics winds up as the ad hoc translator . . . .

In my days as an Episcopalian I remember first hearing about transubstantiation from a sermon at St. Clements Church Philadelphia, a nosebleed high Anglo catholic parish, on the feast of Corpus Christi.

At the time (1980’s) many of the Anglo-Catholic parishes were using an Anglican missal published locally which took the Rite I (traditional language) BCP liturgy and added certain Catholic prayers (e.g. the Domine non sum dignus); however it maintained the Cranmerian Canon rather than using the Roman.

Henry Edwards wrote, “I recall an Anglican participant in one of these consultations quoted as saying that their purpose was to contrive clever statements ambiguous enough to be interpreted one way by the Anglicans and a different way by the Catholics (to each his own, the Vatican II way”?). ”

This thread is probably nearing its end, but I thought I’d add this bit: in her play, Constantine, Dorothy Sayers has Constantine meeting ahead of Nicea with his theological advisor, Hosius of Cordoba, and Bishop Alexander of Alexandria, who brought along his deacon Athanasius, to plan for the concil Constantine has called and considers his own project. Constantine says something along the lines of “Now, as I understand it, our task is to come up with some formula that can be interpreted by both sides according to their viewpoint.” (For the sake of achieving “unity” in the Empire–spoken like a “statesman.”)

Athanasius, the junior of the group, clears his throat, hesitates, says (this is from memory, just a paraphrase): “Er, um, Your Majesty, uh, I think that’s exactly what Arius and his party would like us to do. But it would be a grave mistake. What we need to do is to come up with some formula so clear and unambiguous that no one can read into it whatever he wishes.”

Constantine, surprisngly unruffled, asks, “Is there such a formula.”
Athanasius: “Well, there is one, the Son is ‘homoousios’ with the Father.”

then Hosius, perhaps, interjects, “But there’s only one problem with that, as far as Arius and others are concerned, namely, it’s not found in the Scriptures.”

On this model, most of Anglican history since Elizabeth’s Via Media y has been Arian in methodology: we oh so Englishly agree as proper gentlemen to let each party read the doctrinal statements in differing ways; you stay out of my bailiwick, seminaries, parishes etc., and I’ll stay out of yours.

Dennis Martin, your discussion of Dorothy Sayer’s play, Constantine, sounds a bit like a fairy tale, but to each his own in interpretation and understanding. I personally did not feel the play was that contrived.

On the question of what happens to Anglo-Catholics: I went through Episcopal confirmation in 1981, about the time of the first defections over the 1979 prayer book and women’s ordination. A nearby parish was in fact leaving (and in fact trying to get into the then-new Anglican Use Pastoral Provision, but was denied). I asked the Episcopal priest who was conducting the confirmation class what Anglo-Catholics were. His answer, which I’ve never quite been able to refute was, “These are people who want to feel like they’re Catholics without actually paying the dues you have to pay to be to be a Catholic.” I would assume those dues include obligations to attend mass and regular confession, along with doctrines like the Immaculate Conception, which took me some time to get my spirit around. I do see this problem in the current Anglo-Catholic side of the US Episcopal Church: there are largely gay ECUSA parishes, for instance, that are punctilious in vestment and liturgy but could never go over to Roman Catholicism for the predictable reasons. But even people who aren’t in opposition to the catechism, at least in principle, don’t want to have to face up to the conscience-related issues of Catholicism. T.S.Eliot was a more or less closeted gay, for instance, and I don’t think we can say for sure what his response would be to current Catholic doctrine. But I would think that he would almost certainly not become a Catholic if he were living in 2011 under 2011 cultural assumptions. Dorothy Sayers, who knows? C.S.Lewis, for reasons suggested above, almost certainly would not, though I don’t believe he was an Anglo-Catholic in the first place.

That might work if the issue of validity in Orders was resolved and the fact that what had been areas subject to local usages of the Roman Rite (and not actual sui juris Churches) are not normally given over to be sui juris Churches. We are not the Eastern Orthodox and national Churches do not sit well with the Catholic Church. Obviously I do not have any authority in this, but to me it seems that if you have no issues with Papal infallibility, the Immaculate Conception, etc. etc., it is simply imperative for you to join the Catholic Church first and and not make disciplinary issues a roadblock to coming back to the Barque of Peter, outside of which there is no salvation. Salvation first, disciplinary measures second!

jhayes:

Seems to me that these commissions and such are a huge waste of time because they fail to clarify anything. From the Catholic side, the only reason to dialog about the transubstantiation issue is to see what the Anglican side currently believes regarding it. If they believe in the Faith as stated by the Council of Trent then they need to join. If they don’t, and they know full well what transubstantiation means (and it seems they do, from the 39 Articles) then we still have a problem to which no compromise can be had. At that point, we can seek clarification as to what exactly the Anglican Church teaches and why they do not agree with Trent. Underlying that, basically, if they want to join the Catholic Church they need to ditch the 39 Articles. Some Catholics might use other ways of speaking of transubstantiation, but they (i.e. Easterners) would not deny this point of the faith in the words used by Trent as they cannot. Eastern Catholics believe in transubstantiation and use the term even if they might generally use other ways of speaking about this mystery.

Pope Pius VI condemned a statement of the Synod of Pistoia that, on its surface, seems pretty orthodox but because they didn’t use the term “transubstantiation” it was then suspect precisely because it was seen as a way to get cheap consensus with non-Catholics by letting them maintain their heretical understandings with a sort of mental reservation.

I got no further information from those seminarians. But along this general line (of Latin and Anglicans) perhaps the most elaborately choreographed and accompanied first solemn high Mass I’ve ever seen (in person or in video) was that of a newly ordained FSSP priest at the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul in Philadelphia in 2005. At which the choir and organist of St. Clement (Anglo Catholic) Church of Philadelphia sang the polyphonic Missa Salve Regina of Victoria.

One can take a look at the photo gallery at http://www.s-clements.org/ and wonder how any church’s liturgy could look more Roman Catholic. Certainly, few mainstream Catholic parishes have Solemn Latin Vespers and Benediction every Sunday afternoon.

Well, of course it’s contrived. It’s a play. A playwright writes dialogue. She has to. The scene later, in the “barbershop” is contrived, with genius. Sayers manages to create characters reprseenting the main positions and puts them into a slapstick comedy scene.

It’s contrived but accurate. I use it in teaching because it gets the issues at Nicea on to the table quite accurately. And humorously.

I paraphrased the opening scene, but did so accurately. That Constantine wanted to have some control over proceedings is credible. That he, as emperor would want a pliable, ambiguous formula, is believable. That Athanasius was young, comparatively, is a point Sayers wants to make.

But to avoid a rabbit hole for this thread, my point in recalling the scene is to say that Sayers, in my view, was absolutely right: the Arian party wanted ambiguity; ambiguity might seem to be a way to maintain “unity” but it’s a fool’s gold unity.

Anglican unity has been, for centuries, predicated on ambiguity. It lasted among Anglophiles as long as Britannia ruled the waves and for a generation or so afterward. But it was doomed from the outset. I suppose it was better than unity based on an iron fist, as reigned from from Elizabeth the Virgin Queen onward for a century or two. But it had no better long-term prospects than “unity” achieved by an absolute monarchy’s violence. A cheap unity achieved by ambiguity is not really unity.

And everyone, on all sides, deep down, knows it.

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“Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites. . . . Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.”

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The opinions expressed on this blog do not necessarily reflect the positions of any of the Catholic Church's entities with which I am involved. They are my own. Opinions expressed by commentators in the comments belong to the commentators.